Lettuce woes

My black-seeded Simpson is not doing very well.  I’m not exactly sure what the problem is.  Ever since I thinned them, the sprouts have languished– one of them has even flat out died.  They don’t seem to have any self-support the way they used to, and I usually find them sort of lying down.  Perhaps when I thinned the seedlings, I disturbed the roots of the ones I left (I did cut the extras out rather than pulling them up…)?  I think that I have been watering them enough, and it has certainly been raining a lot here lately.  The last time I watered the plants, I added fertilizer (Miracle-Gro) thinking that it might help.  I also planted a couple new seeds to replace the sprout that died.  

Does anyone have an idea of what might be going on?  Not enough sun?  Too much water?  Not enough water?  

Tomato sprout update

It’s been a while since I gave the tomatoes the spotlight… I meant to post earlier this week, but it’s been a crazy one, and so I’ll post my pictures from Monday today.

They’re growing well, it seems. Tiny Tim is the smallest… I was a little surprised at how obviously smaller the sprout is than its fellow sproutlings. I know that the full-grown plant is supposed to be pretty small, but I guess I didn’t connect the fact that the sprout would also be much smaller.

The Early Girls are tall and straight. But for a while now they’ve had their first set of true leaves but haven’t done much about a second. I hope that they’ll grow soon… I’m starting to think that they’re getting big enough to plant outside.

Yellow Pear is a crazy beast! It already has two nice big sets of true leaves, and beginnings of a third. (This isn’t a great picture, unfortunately, but it’s what I’ve got.)  I think that this one will have to get planted in the big pot soon.  The really long stem bothers me a bit; I don’t want leggy plants!  I do remember reading that when I replant my seedlings, I should bury one or two sets of leaves to force the roots to be stronger/deeper.  So maybe it will still be okay!

We’ll probably bring the sprouts home next week and I’ll try to start hardening them off…  Or maybe I’ll just bring the Yellow Pear, and leave the others to grow more in the sunny window.  Any advice?

Thankful Thursday a day late

This week (and for last week, too), I am thankful for 

– my husband, who takes good care of me

– an end in sight for the resubmission of my paper (maybe)

– cucumber sprouts (sprouts make me happy!)

– good health (even though I did have a cold this week, but I’m recovering!)

– the blessing of having Godly friends

– my God who gives me strength.  I can do nothing without Him!  This truth has been on my mind a lot this week.  

 

Lettuce thinning & some sprouts and strawberries

So the black seeded simpson is doing great!! So today I decided to thin it out… Here’s a photo of the before:

The black seeded simpson seed packet said to thin the sprouts to 10″ to 12″ apart, so here’s the after for the two black seeded simpson pots:

I left 4 seedlings in the first pot and 3 in the second pot. The mesclun mix seed packet said to trim to 4″ separation:

I tried to leave a selection of the different types of sprouts that had come up. And tonight for dinner, we’re going to have a “microgreens” salad!

And in other news, there are some cucumber sprouts starting! One in each pot…

The strawberries are coming along swimmingly, too There are only a couple plants with no leaves at all (which might be caused by too-efficient draining in a couple of pots– we couldn’t find saucers to fit the pots, so the water drains out almost immediately. We’re going to try to find something to put under them, but the plants might already be too far gone…) Most of the plants are looking hale and hearty!

There are a few late starters, but they’re catching up

And yesterday I saw that a pea shoot had grabbed onto the tomato cage! Yay for pea success (so far)!

MMMmmmmm salad.  What a way to end a lovely spring day!

To-do list for the garden and blog

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, considering it’s spring and things are growing in my garden!  Here’s a list of things I plan to do in the near future:

• photo update of the garden & tomato seedlings
• write a “Strawberries” page (tab)
• write a “Peas” page (tab)
• start looking into thinning the lettuce sprouts

The cucumber seeds haven’t sprouted as of this morning, and neither have the chives :-/  Hopefully they’ll sprout soon!!

and oh yeah, the polka dot dress is coming along.  I got it all put together by the 17th of this month, and when my mom came, she helped me alter it a bit (I was getting hip wings! but I think they’re gone now) and mark where the snaps will go.  I still have a lot of hand work to do before it’s finished:  sewing the snaps on, then the buttons; finishing the hem; finding a belt…  

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful for my wonderful husband who cares to listen and remember little details… and then uses those details later to make me so happy!

I am thankful that it is the last week of teaching for me– for the semester, at least! I am also thankful that some of the students in my “enrichment” section did super jobs on the exam! I am so proud of them, and I hope that their good performance means that I have helped them a bit.

I’m thankful for the wonderful family that I have! It was great to see my parents this past weekend. We had a great time doing just mundane things– and eating out a lot. But it was so fun!

I’m thankful for the wonderful garden that Husband and I have planted. I really *really* enjoy going out and checking my plants and doing all those garden-y things. It’s really such a good stress reliever

and p.s., it’s my birthday today!

More planting!

This garden is going to be our biggest one yet!

First, a quick update:

I FOUND A PEA SPROUT YESTERDAY!

I had almost given up on the peas, because it had been 14 days with no sign of a sprout.  I was going to sort of poke around in the soil and see (by sacrificing one seed, if necessary) if anything was happening, or if the peas were all duds.  But I found one poking up just in time :)  And when I watered the plants today, the water washed away some soil, revealing two more sprouts!  YAY!

The lettuce is growing really well, too… Here are pics of my three pots:

Now for the new stuff…

We decided to take a trip to Prairie Gardens with my parents this afternoon. I really needed a watering can (the orange juice jugs I was using were a little too open-mouthed for the tiny lettuce seedlings) and we wanted to get another tomato cage (for the cukes) and check out the options for strawberries, cucumbers, and herbs.

While we were there, we decided to start the cucumbers from seed, so I got a packet of the Spacemaker Bush variety. I thought I’d see how the bush type of cucumber does, since that’s what The Bountiful Container recommends for container gardens. We also decided, after seeing the prices for 4 tiny herb seedlings compared to a seed packet, to start chives from seed this year.

Next, we went on a hunt for strawberries. There was a rack of plastic “baskets” of strawberry plants, but they were already putting out fruit!! We didn’t think that would go so well in our garden (if they were a June-bearing variety, they would be finished hardly after we planted!). Husband sought out an employee, and found a “Plant Expert” who was very helpful (unfortunately, I can’t remember her name). She told us that bare-root strawberry “plants” were in a cooler, and we should get an everbearing variety. We found a pamphlet that listed the varieties recommended by the local extension unit for the name of the everbearing variety: Quinalt. I really hadn’t expected the bare root thing– I had gotten the impression that you would buy little strawberry seedlings and plant them. The Plant Expert told us that we should take the bundle of 25 (!!!) roots and soak it in room-temperature water for about 30 minutes, then plant the roots in damp soil, leaving the little nubbin from which the roots emanate above the soil.

So, in addition to the seeds, we picked up a few more 6″ pots (the pot size recommended to us), a tomato cage, more potting soil, and a coconut fiber basket for the top of the wrought iron plant stand from Ellie. Since we knew we had 25 strawberry plants, we decided to get a metal basket with a coconut fiber basket liner to hang along the inside of the balcony railing, too! (Husband is VERY excited about having strawberries!)

We decided to plant everything this afternoon! We filled a little bucket with room-temperature water and started the strawberries soaking…

and rearranged the pots and plant stand on the porch.  (We also tied the coconut fiber basket to the top of the plant stand, just to be safe…)

We mixed our new bag of potting mix with more perlite,

and filled all our three 5.5″ (from last year) and two 6″ pots as well as the coconut fiber baskets.

We wet down the soil with the new watering can and I planted my cucumber seeds in the center, with the chives in a ring around the outer edge of the pots.

I’m not sure if that combination will work, but I figure it’s worth a shot! Besides, we wanted as many pots as possible for the strawberries.

We managed to plant 21 of the 25 strawberry roots!  (Did I mention that Husband is VERY excited about strawberries?)  After about 30 minutes of soaking, I separated the individual strawberry nubs and their roots:

Most of them were about this size:

but a couple were strawberry beasts!

 

Husband planted them carefully, spreading out their roots and covering them with some soil (but leaving the nubbin above the soil).

We filled all the pots that we had, and a couple of plastic ice cream buckets in which we poked some holes…  We had four strawberry roots left over, so we gave them to my dad… he’s going to take them home and see how they do in a pot on my parents’ back porch

P.S.  Husband is VERY excited to have strawberries!

Thankful Thursday

This week I am thankful for:

the way God provides– I have access to research funding for the summer, so I don’t have to TA! It’s certainly a relief to know that I’ll be able to focus all my attention on my research for the next few months after the semester ends.

my parents! They’re coming to visit us this weekend

P.S. this is my 100th post

Photo update of my garden

On Friday, I started seeing true leaves on my tomato sprouts:

I also found that the lettuce seeds had sprouted!! Unfortunately, the photos I tried to take with my camera that day turned out blurry, since the cloudy weather made for dim lighting at that time of the evening.

BUT, I took more photos of the lettuce sprouts yesterday evening. Here’s a clump of Black-Seeded Simpson sprouts coming up in the rightmost pot:

There are Black-Seeded Simpson sprouts in the lefthand lettuce pot, too, but not as many (I wonder why?). Here is a picture of a few in a patch of evening sunlight:

It seems like only one type of seed in the Mesclun mix has sprouted so far.  There are quite a number of these sprouts poking up:

I have no idea what they are, especially considering I’ve never grown lettuce before, and I’m not all that familiar with the varieties in the mix anyway!

Today at lunch, I took some more photos of the tomato sprouts:

Their true leaves are getting much more pronounced and tomato-leafy!

It was pretty cold here last night, so I’m hoping that the lettuce sprouts survived okay.  No sign of the peas yet.

P.S. In other news, my husband and I have come up with an exciting idea for the plant stand from Ellie!  I was thinking of edible flowers, but we might try strawberries!! :-D  Not sure if there’s enough sun for them though…

True leaves

On Friday before leaving work, I checked on my little tomato sprouts in my husband’s office window (it’s so nice to work on campus together!) and noticed that I could see true leaves starting  Today at lunch I looked in on them again, and the leaves are definitely prominent now–  Yay!  I will upload some pictures soon. 

And some pictures of the lettuce sprouts, if they’re still alive!